Bribery or Marketing?

Bribery or Marketing?

It was reported in today’s newspapers that the Macmillan publishing group has been banned by the World Bank for six years from participating in any its contracts. This sanction is being applied as a direct result of Macmillan apparently admitting that it paid bribes to secure a book deal in Sudan.

Macmillan have stated that “there is no suggestion that these concerns have affected any of Macmillan’s other principal businesses, and it is the case that they are confined to a limited part of our education business”. The ‘unlawful” payment was made by a member of staff in an unsuccessful bid for an education project backed by a World Bank Fund. The Serious Fraud Office in London is investigating!

Strangely enough, last week I posted a blog (www.falconbury.co.uk) about the new Bribery laws due to be coming into force in the UK later in the year.

Now, what do we make of all this?

The World Bank is surely not unaccustomed to such practices going on. My point of view is that ‘bribery’ payments are made more often than not as a result of extortion. Winning the contract is rarely on merit alone. The problem is rife and it is getting worse throughout the world. The payer gets punished but not the payee.

Nobody knows, of course, how widespread this is in the world of publishing – just how many contracts are won and lost where hidden payments sway the decision? Marketing and promotion expenditure and other expenses will hide a multitude of sins.

The pertinent point here is how often in publishing (just to stay focussed on that ‘industry’) are payments made which cannot be directly related to services received?

One area I am thinking of is the significant payments from large publishers to major booksellers to secure stocking and display arrangements. They are made in the name of marketing, but what are they really?

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